Fiji Times Online Passion for Poetry

Satendra Nandan(1999) Satendra Nandan was born in Fiji and completed his doctorate at ANU. He was a member of the Fiji Parliament from 1982 then moved to Canberra following the coups in the late 1980's. Nandan's publications include three volumes of poetry, one acclaimed novel, The Wounded Sea, and 3 co-edited collections of essays. The Asialink residency in 1999 - 2000 provided him with the opportunity to work on a range of India-related projects: a novel set in New Delhi, Canberra and Suva, a collection of semi-autobiographical pieces titled Indian Fragments, a book on the life and values of Mahatma Gandhi, and the Delhi section of his autobiography, Requiem for a Rainbow: An Indo- Fijian Journey. He also worked on a translation of Patrick White's Tree of Man into Hindi with academics at JNU, to be published in June 2001. Satendra Nandan's Literature residency was supported by Arts ACT and the Australia Council. Fiji Times Online Fiji Time: 9:19 PM on Wednesday 8 September Passion for poetry Satendra Nandan Thursday, March 25, 2010 The writer says it's clear to teach fictionand drama in schools than poetry This year I began a course in Poetry for my students majoring in English. Most don't remember a single poem. Some are teachers of English. It's been a daunting subject, they tell me, and poetry has gone out the windows of their classrooms. It's easier to teach fiction and drama; poetry is blank verse - sometimes even filling the blanks in exams. There's, of course, poetry all around us. Fiji has an aura of paradise in the world's imagination because of the poetic nature of the islands, the features of the faces we meet, the colours of the sky, the sounds of the surf breaking on the shores; and the wetness of falling rain on the mystic mountains, the magic of the moon seen through the trembling leaves of a raintree, the flamboyance of sunsets, the radiance of a sunrise, and, occasionally, the terror and pity of more than cyclones. The challenge of a teacher is to open the imagination of the child to the wonders of the world around us: the natural world, the human world - all is charged with the grandeur of God; where generations have trod, have trod, And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell? There's poetry in the used utensils of our mothers, in the spades and knives of our fathers, in the woven baskets and mats in the market place. There's always poetry in the movements on the playing fields, in the gait and gaiety of companionships, in the greenness of grass. Poets make us see these things with freshness and new feelings of reverence for life lived. The very impurities of our existence - its stains and sprains - are the stuff of poems: we sense this in the folds of our hills, in the wrinkles of the sea-waves, in the cracks of our heart, in the silences of our conversation. Poetry makes us enter a different reality. But that reality is in our world of daily bread. We see the immediate with a singular beauty and hope; in acts of kindness and affections. The sweat and tears, smells and scents, plastic bags and flowers, the poetry of human body soiled sometimes by our shameful behaviour, often ennobled by the energy within us, is our deepest poetry. Its freshness never becomes spent or stale. And we often wonder why love was not given, the good not done, the faith not followed, the feelings not expressed. Yet there are moments of personal epiphanies. As a poet wrote sitting in a city's shop: My fiftieth year had come and gone I sat, a soliditary man, An open book and empty cup On the marble table-top. While on the shop and street I gazed My body of a sudden blazed; And twenty minutes more or less It seemed, so great my happiness, That I was blessed and could bless. These moments of illumination are part of our lives. And once you've known them, your temptations for corruption and criminality are lessened because you've been touched by a special emotion. It is this that makes our living bearable, to discover the extraordinary behind the ordinary, the mystery and the mantras that is found in every possible aspect of our lives. But poetry's greatest gift is how it helps us to survive grief, big and small, in life and death. Who hasn't heard the crying in the wind, or seen a personal loss in the withering of a tree. Or confronted in an empty doorway, a fallen leaf which contains all the history of our grief. We know poetry is healing: our sweetest songs are those that tell us of our saddest thoughts. We realise though nothing will bring back 'the hour of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower' but we will grieve not; find strength in what remains behind, hearing often times, The still, sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating... And feel A sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things? What better lines to inspire our children and adults to love and protect our environment, to believe in a presence greater than ourselves. Poetry can also be nationalistic and patriotic: I have grown past hate and bitterness, I see the world as one; But though I can no longer hate, My son is still my son. All men at God's round table sit, And all men must be fed; But the loaf in my hand, This loaf is my son's bread. But Poetry really has no national frontiers - it crosses all borders and sometimes we murmur to ourselves, in our most intimate moments, my soul, like my twin in the sun, has no country. Poetry will not make us just but it may make injustice visible, audible. All prophets and seers have this poetic quality in their utterances. They have vision; the poet gives us the better eyesight. And our deepest insight is that in all our distress, life remains a blessing, although often we may fail to bless. It is to this awareness that poetry gives permanence and significance. In our hymns and songs, bhajan and prayers, the poetry of lives and lines remains in the nightmares of the dust-laden streets and the dreams of city lights. It also reveals to us that a moth's desire for light is because it sees darkness in the heart of light; poetry often makes us see light in the heart of darkness. It is to this difference that every poet gives meaning for it is our expression of the dialogue with ourselves; our mobile connection with the moving spirit of the universe. Poetry takes us back into our lives and like the ocean it receives all with charity, like the earth renews all without malice. So teach and read, write and recite your poems and 'rage, rage against the dying of the light'. That may have been a poet's cry against Death; for us it could be our poem of Life. Visions of a larger humanity Saturday, May 19, 2007 The following remarks were made by high chief and former Vice-President Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi at the launching of Doctor Satendra Nandan's book, The Loneliness of Islands at the University of Fiji on Tuesday. THIS anthology of verse is an eclectic offering. They are collected under a heading that mirrors the poet's own personal journey and pilgrimage. It weaves a rich and vibrant tapestry that threads together the pain of Girmitya, the strength of family, the despair of rootlessness, alienation of exile and the variegated mosaic of life beyond our shores as well as the pathos of the return home. They are at heart intensely private musings that are generously shared with the poet's audience for some understanding of his perspectives. The launching today is deliberate. It marks the one hundred and twenty-eighth anniversary of the arrival of the Girmityas. The names of the ships that brought them are etched on our collective consciousness: Leonidas, Syria, Danube, Poonah, Elbe and others. The poet calls them to mind in Lines Across Black Waters. It is their legacy of pain, suffering, stoicism, sacrifice and eventual resilience against what fate visited upon them that has moulded the outlook of this poet. He is profoundly affected by what they endured. So terrible and searing on their psyche, that they and their children rarely spoke of it. Many seemingly ashamed of their helplessness in the face of overwhelming institutionalised brutality and violence. The poet feels and is able to make a connection with his forbears because he appreciates and is grateful for a simple fact: his achievements and accolades rest on the bloodied backs of their servitude. So too may this be said for most of the Indo-Fijian community. Lest one forgets, this is an opportune time for giving some thought to making this day a public holiday. The title of the work is a metaphor and is also a poem. An island is surrounded by sea, cut off from other islands. Memories are an intensely individual emotion: many may share them but only one can experience them uniquely.

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